Chapter Summary

Many important services are provided using a model in which
the service instance, running on one or more servers, is abstracted
by a logical component called a service
application. Service applications can be used by one or
more web applications. When a web application requests a service
from the service application, the request is fulfilled by one of the
service instances.

Each service application has an application connection, or
proxy. The connection defines the communication between a web
application and a service application.

Application connections are collected in an application
connection group, or proxy group, that allows a web application to
connect to multiple services. A web application can connect to an
application connection group or to individual service application
connections.

Some service applications can be shared across farms.

The Managed Metadata Service is a service application that
provides support for taxonomy, folksonomy, and content type
syndication.